[JURIST] FOX News is reporting that the Iraqi Special Tribunal [governing statute] judge overseeing the lagal proceedings against Saddam Hussein has been assassinated. Raid Juhi al-Saadi,35, was reportedly gunned down outside his home in Baghdad. He had already survived several assassination attempts and had recently moved into a special walled compound with his family that had been hardened against attacks.

In August 2004 New York Times reporter John Burns wrote in a feature article [registration required] that "If Raid Juhi al-Saadi is not the world's most endangered judge, he must be close." In a 2004 op-ed [reprint] in the Houston Chronicle, Case Western University law professor Michael Scharf, who has been involved in helping to train the Iraqi judiciary for war crimes prosecutions, similarly wrote of the dangers facing al-Saadi and his colleagues:

The tribunal's judges have risked their lives by accepting their commission, thus demonstrating the sort of courage needed to make fair decisions. Most impressive among those I met was Raid Juhi al-Saadi, the 35-year-old judge who presided over Saddam's initial appearance before the tribunal in June. Because of the extensive media coverage of that event, the judge has become perhaps the most recognized face in Iraq, next to that of Saddam's. The judge told me that he was given the option of not having his face shown on camera during the proceedings, but that he did not want the tribunal to be subject to the type of criticism that has been leveled at courts in Peru and Chile where judges wore hoods. He was willing to put his personal safety at risk to show the "face of Iraqi justice" and the tribunal's commitment to fairness.

THIS DAY @ LAW

International Day for the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination

March 21 is the International
Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination [UNESCO
factsheet].On March 21, 1804, the
Code Civil des Francais, the reformed French
civil law often referred to in French as the Code Napoleon, and in
English as the Napoleonic Code, went into effect in France, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and French colonies.

March from Selma begins

On March 21, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. began
his third march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest racial
discrimination in the Jim Crow South. By March 25, over 25,000
people lead by Dr. King reached Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically,
the march called attention to suppression of African-American voting
rights and a police assault on a civil rights demonstration three
weeks prior.Five months
later, in August 1965, Congress passed the Voting
Rights Act. Read a history
of the march from Selma to Montgomery and a history
of the Voting Rights Act.